Chemical Gardens

by Gina Ranalli

  37

  “Where’s Dose?” I ask, absently kicking Wanda in her dead face.

  Pawn jerks her thumb towards the back door. “He’s out there playing with the security guards. He thinks they’re cute.”

  “Really?” Kick. “Were they cute.” Kick. “When they were.” Kick. “Shooting at you?”

  “Aw, they weren’t so bad,” Whey answers. “I think they were only halfheartedly trying to hit us.”

  “Can you blame them?” Pawn asks, eyeing the roasted pink and black cherub on the counter. “Ro, do you think you could stop kicking her now? It’s kind of disconcerting.”

  “Fine,” I say with a sigh, then mutter, “It’s not like she doesn’t deserve it, though.” I reach down and pluck my keys out of the demon’s hand. “I can’t believe it was my keychain all along.”

  “That is rather peculiar,” Pawn says.

  The three of us stand in a circle looking down at Wanda.

  “So…” Whey says. “Are we really going to bring her back to the Priestess?”

  “Well, that’s what she told us to do,” I say, not liking the idea any more than him.

  “She’ll be too heavy to carry all that way,” Pawn says. “Even with all three of us lugging her.”

  She and I exchange a glance, knowing what must be done.

  38

  An hour later, we each carry a piece of the demon in our arms. Pawn struggles to fold a single wing into a comfortable-to-carry size, while I try not to injure myself by gripping one of the clawed hands by the wrist. Whey carries the severed head and is practically in tears about it.

  “This is so gross,” he whines. “It’s getting me all messy.”

  Sure enough, some kind of black gooey blood substance leaks from the ragged neck wound and seeps through Whey’s tie-dye tank-top, which is already stained with brain juice, among other things. His hands and arms are shiny with the liquid tar gunk.

  “You can take a bath soon,” I promise him.

  All around us, cherubs flitter back and forth, accompanying us on our way back to see Chemical Gardens. Dose really does seem quite taken with the little guys; he doesn’t utter a single complaint the entire trip.

  39

  When we arrive back at the Gardens’ dressing room, everything is exactly how it was the first time we arrived. Just a band hanging out after a show.

  The Metal Priestess watches us come in with only the vaguest of interest.

  “She’s dead,” I tell her, holding out the severed hand. Pawn and Whey do likewise with their pieces of the demon. “We killed her. Sort of. The point is she’s dead.”

  “So I see,” the Priestess replies, without rising from her spot on her enormous sofa. “And the key? Did you get the key?”

  I force a laugh. “Well, you know, that part is actually pretty funny. It turns out the whole time—”

  “DID YOU GET THE MOTHERFUCKING KEY?”

  The roar sends us all reeling backwards and causes Whey to jump so high that he drops the demon’s head. It lands with a thump and rolls towards the Priestess, coming to rest between her huge metal boots.

  Trembling, I set the hand down on a nearby coffee table, reach into my pocket and pull out my key ring. The keys clink together merrily.

  The Metal Priestess purses her lips for a moment, then quietly asks, “Do I seem like I have a good sense of humor to you?”

  “No, definitely not!” I say quickly. “But it’s not the keys. It’s the keychain. The guitar is the actual key.”

  “I see.” The Priestess moves slowly towards me until she is able to reach out and take the keychain from my hand. She studies it the way one might study the Holy Grail. “Interesting.”

  There is a definite change in the atmosphere now. The happy energy coming from the Metal Priestess and her band mates is unmistakable but rather curious. All of them are looking up, towards the doorknobs in the ceiling with anticipation.

  My band—we all look at each other and shrug, finally gazing upwards right along with Gardens, though we have no idea why.

  “Is something supposed to happen now?” Dose asks softly.

  “Those knobs are pretty high,” Whey observes. “Is there a ladder around, maybe?”

  “There is no ladder,” The Priestess replies, as if in a daze. “That’s what that pansy-ass Chad is for.”

  “What in the fuck—” Dose starts, but doesn’t get the chance to finish his cussing.

  As if on cue, Chad, the blond surfer dude, whizzes into the room on his hoverboard. “Man, why ya gotta be so harsh?” he asks the Priestess. “I got here as soon as I heard.”

  “Just get it over with,” the Metal Priestess snaps, thrusting the keychain back into my hand.

  Chad, balancing on his board, offers me a hand and a grin. “C’mon, dude. Your chariot awaits and all that stuff.”

  Pawn places a hand on my shoulder. “Ro, does this seem a little strange to you?”

  “This whole thing has been strange, right from the beginning.” I say and smile. “But now we’re getting the heck out of Dodge and that’s pretty cool, right?”

  She doesn’t reply and rather than wait for her to, I grasp Chad’s extended hand and climb onto his hoverboard.

  “Whoa,” he laughs as we both almost topple off the thing. “Move with the waves. Don’t let it get away from you.” He stands behind me and places both of his hands on my waist. “You ready? Okay, here we go!”

  The hoverboard sails towards the ceiling and the dozens of knobs, each one of them potentially the one that will bring us home.

  I try to ignore the height, the guitar keychain held firmly between my right thumb and forefinger. “This might take a while, huh?” I ask.

  “Or,” Chad says. “It could totally not take any time at all. Wouldn’t that be rad?”

  As it turns out though, it takes forever. I’m practically asleep on the hoverboard, having long since adjusted my balance, attempting to shove the guitar keychain into knob after knob. Sometimes just the headstock slides into the keyhole and yet other times the whole neck will slip in smooth as butter and I feel my spirits rise for a second, but then the knob itself doesn’t budge and I’m back to the beginning again.

  Below us, everyone else has grown impatient and most of them are rubbing their necks which are sore from staring up at the ceiling for so long. They’re all grumbling and moaning, occasionally yelling at me to hurry up.

  “I’m going as fast as I can,” I yell back crossly, attempting to stick the keychain into the 70th knob. It slides in and, while my attention is diverted, twists in the keyhole with a soft click.

  “Dude!” Chad exclaims, suddenly awake. “That’s totally the one! You did it.”

  “I did?” I’m completely amazed, but can feel a slow tired smile spreading across my face. “I did!” I yell, causing everyone else below us to stir and look up. “I did it!”

  “Okay, dudes and dudettes,” Chad says as if he’s making an official announcement. “You may all want to find something to hold onto, ‘cause this can be a little rough. It’s best to stand in a doorway, if you can.”

  I crane my neck to look at him, trying to figure out just what he’s talking about and then everything begins to shake. Slowly at first, with a low distant rumble, but then with increasing violence. Things and people begin to fall over and Whey screams, “Earthquake!”

  I spin around on the board, hugging Chad tight around his neck and the two of us ride the quake as if it’s a solid, physical thing.

  Something that sounds like a bomb explodes beneath us and I scream into his shoulder. I can hear my friends screaming down on the floor and I dare a peek in the direction of their voices.

  What I see causes my eyes to widen despite the clouds of dust and soot rising all around us. Mostly rising out of a gigantic crack that has appeared in the center of the large dressing room. A crack seemingly without a bottom, much like the one we fell into all those—what was it? Hours? Days? Weeks?—ago.

  Inc
redibly, Chad is laughing. “Dude, this is gonna be awesome!”

  Without warning, there is the sound of rushing water, rushing up out of that crack and then it shoots up and out, black sewer sludge water, cold and disgusting, drenching everything.

  Someone on the floor—maybe Whey—cries out, “We’re gonna drown!”

  I release my grip on Chad, intending to dive down there, die with my band if that’s what will be, but he grabs my arm and shakes his head. “Not your turn, dude,” he says.

  Trying to pull myself loose, eyes squinting against the geyser, I’m amazed to see the band known as Chemical Gardens and not a single one of them deformed anymore. The Metal Priestess is just heavy metal chick, decked out in black leather and a silver dog collar around her neck. The rest of them are equally metal but normal looking people and this isn’t even the most amazing thing; the absolute most amazing part of this whole scene is that all of them—the entire band—is jumping straight into the crack only to be pushed up by the geyser. They’re riding the top of the geyser and they’re all laughing. They’re still laughing when the force of the water punches a hole through the roof and out they go, sky high and smiling.

  The water shoots them far out of sight, into the stratosphere and then it settles back down, as if a secret hand is slowly spinning a spigot clockwise, turning off a fountain.

  Once the water has stopped pushing its way up out of the crack, the crack itself fuses back together until there is no evidence that it was there at all.

  Soaked, my band lies splayed out on the floor down there, drenched and coughing up sewer sludge.

  “What the fuck?” Dose finally manages, struggling to sit up, his outline a bit blurry.

  Chad takes us down to floor level and I immediately jump off the hoverboard and rush over to my friends.

  Hacking up gobs of gross, Whey asks, “Is that what was supposed to happen?”

  Still grinning, Chad says, “Exactly, dude.”

  Helping Pawn to her feet, I say, “You’re telling me that the whole time it was them who were going to get out of here?”

  Chad shrugs. “Everyone gets their turn.”

  Dose shouts, “You goddamn fucking pussy motherfucker. You lied to us!”

  “Harsh, dude. Harsh.” Chad looks almost sad for an instant, then he’s grinning again. “Anyway, I can’t wait to see you guys play tonight. I know you’re gonna rock the house and…uh…totally rock!”

  What happens next is nothing but pure pandemonium. Which is, of course, the heart of any serious punk band. Pandemonium, anarchy and playing a set that unleashes hell, demons, earthquakes, chaos.

  This is what we’re good at. This is what we do.

  Gina Ranalli is the author of House of Fallen Trees, Suicide Girls in the Afterlife, Wall of Kiss, Mother Puncher, Praise the Dead, Sky Tongues, Dark Surge and Unearthed. She lives in the Seattle area and you can visit her on the web at www.ginaranalli.com.